One of the persistent problems encountered by boaters is the excessive heat and humidity which collects in the interior enclosed spaces of a boat such as a power boat or sail boat. Since these boats are exposed to direct sunlight for extended periods, the interior living space of the boat often becomes overheated.
Numerous attempts have been made in the prior art to solve this problem by ventilating the enclosed area of boats. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 59,264 to Raymond describes a wind sail which includes four wings for catching the wind from different directions to direct fresh air down into the vessel. U.S. Pat. No. 1,533,344 to Singleton discloses a ship ventilator cowl which includes a windmill mounted in the cowl for automatically turning the cowl into the wind.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,757,664 to Jalbert describes a cloth ventilator which is fixed in a hatchway of a vessel so that the wind can blow into the ventilator in any direction and be directed downwardly into the bottom portion of the vessel.
Other ventilation devices for ships are described in U.S. Pat. No. 1,076,609 to Searcy, U.S. Pat. No. 665,507 to Carrico, and U.S. Pat. No. 1,330,569 to Ahern.
The prior art ventilating structures are generally cumbersome, expensive to build, and are impractical for use with small boats such as pleasure craft owned and used by individuals. The most commonly used ventilator at the present time is a fixed sail-like device which must be attached to the hatch and mast of a boat and must be repositioned manually whenever the boat changes direction with respect to the wind. Thus, these devices are not readily adaptable to use on power boats having no mast.
At the present time, there is no practical way to maintain a flow of ventilating air into the interior enclosed space of a boat regardless of the direction of the boat with respect to the wind. Accordingly, it is a primary object of this invention to automatically and continuously direct an air flow into the hatch opening of a boat regardless of the direction of the boat with respect to the wind.
It is a further object of this invention to automatically swivel a wind scoop in response to the changes in the direction of the wind.
Another object of the invention is to further direct the flow of ventilating air within a boat through the use of an auxiliary scoop.
A further object of the invention is to economically and efficiently ventilates the interior of both sail boats and power boats.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in part in the description that follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentalities and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims.